Stereo Embers: The Podcast

"Hangover Terrace" The Ontario-born Ron Sexsmith is one of the great musical treasures on this weird and troubled planet. And we need him now more than ever. Over the course of his decorated career, the three-time Juno award-winning singer/songwriter has put out close to twenty winning albums and here's a quick note about that--his discography is perfect with not even a trace of a dip of quality....

"The Song Forlorn" Perhaps best known as the Peter portion of the Swedish outfit Peter Bjorn and John, Peter Morén and his band have put out close to ten albums of catchy indie rock that's yielded worldwide hits like "Young Folks," tours around the globe, international television ads and TV and movie placements in everything from Gossip Girl to Bandslam. Raised in the Swedish countryside, Morén gr...

"Boys Talking" Yes, it's true that Will Dailey's seventh album, Boys Talking is not technically out. I mean, it is and it isn't. Hold that thought because we're going to circle back to it. The Boston-born Will Dailey is one of the most affecting, soulful and moving singers you'll ever hear. His back catalog, which features records like Goodbye Red Bullet, National Throat, Golden Walker and his new...

"Deck" Over the course of their nearly-fifteen album career, Hallelujah The Hills have established themselves as one of the most unpredictable, inventive and fascinating bands on the planet. Hard to pick favorites in their discography because every album is unbelievable--there's 2012's No One Knows What Happens Next or 2013's Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Trashcan or 2016's A Band Is Something...

"Bonus Episode" Okay, so this was recorded before Ilan Rubin was named as the new drummer for the Foo Fighters, but this is a cool chat and if you aren't familiar with his work with Nine Inch Nails and Angels and Airwaves and The New Regime, this is a great catch-up on his career. He's a really nice guy and a great drummer and in case you missed this episode, we've got you.

"Can You Fly" Yes, Freedy Johnston did his California Thing and it was immortalized on his 1992 album Can You Fly. When you're an artist you can go one of two ways: east or west and he Kansas-born singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston went east, landing in New York after college. Firmly planted in the 212, Johnston worked odd jobs and wrote songs and after keeping at it, he signed with the fledgling i...

"Xtra Cherries" An aspiring baseball player with a solid fastball, the Illinois-born Chip Znuff put down the glove in favor of the bass and he left home at 17 going west with his punk rock band D-Generation. The D Generation story is told best by Chip himself, so I'll leave that one to him, and I'll cover what happened after that band broke up. Licking his wounds from his first time around on the...

"Bow To No One" Southern California native Bill See got his start in the pop band The Need, which, by the mid-'80s had morphed into Divine Weeks. With a groundswell of critical acclaim powering their mighty boat, the band put out instant classics like Never Get Used To It and Through And Through, which came out on Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate's label. Although they had a ton of buzz, played l...

"Strange Kind Of Paradise" Formed in Leeds at the dawn of the '80s, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry were weaned on the MC5 and Wire, but their brooding melodies and dark and churning instrumentation got them lumped in with the Goth scene. Their 1985 debut Talk About The Weather went to #3 on the NME indie chart and to this day remains an undisputed classic. With John Peel a huge fan and their own fans affe...

"High In My Balloon" When it comes to the Grammy-nominated musician and composer Willie Aron, he's worked with so many people, it might be faster just to list the people he hasn't worked with. Born in Southern California, Aron studied classical piano before falling in love with the Beatles and new wave and teaching himself guitar. He co-founded The Balancing Act who signed to I.R.S., put out three...

"A Sober Conversation" Although BC Camplight is the brainchild of the New Jersey born Brian Christinzio, don't be mistaken in thinking his onstage persona is a protective way of distancing himself emotionally from who he is offstage because it's the exact opposit. BC Camplight is actually a way of amplifying those emotions and as a result, it's hard to think of a more emotionally open and accesibl...

"Sonic Ranch" Licking his wounds from the breakup of his band Big Car, the Texas-born singer/songwriter Miles Zuniga found himself out west--and when I say out west I mean about ten minutes from where we record this podcast. Miles got a job working at Chez Panisse and hanging out on Telegraph Avenue at Cody's Books and Amoeba Music. The Big Car experience hadn't been great, so Miles was plotting o...

"Midnight At The Valencia" Before all this rock and roll stuff, Tom Hollister was a highly touted Rugby player from Wales. I'll let him tell you how his career as an athlete was derailed as a young man in Canada, but let me just say this: when he got back to Wales, he channeled all that athletic energy into another sport entirely: the making of music. In 2010, of all the emerging buzzbands, Cardin...

"Feel Good Now" Alright, let's get the spicy stuff out of the way; yes, the Loft split up onstage in front of 3,000 people while opening for the Colorfield at the Hammersmith Palais. That happened. But a lot happened before and a lot has happened after, so let me catch you up. Formed in 1980, The Loft were one of the first bands signed to Alan McGee's Creation Records. Their wistful pop had jangle...

"Choking On Fuel" The Australian-born singer/songwriter Imogen Clark is one of our favorite guests here at the podcast. Aside from being one of the most genial people you'll ever meet, Clark is also honest and analytical about herself and her approach to music. In fact, Clark's authenticity as a person is mirrored perfectly in her art. Clark's songwriting is observational and wise and her composit...

"Strawberries" Perhaps best known as one of the co-founding members of the late great Australian band The Go-Betweens, singer/songwriter Robert Forster has been putting out critically acclaimed solo albums since his 1990 debut Danger In The Past. Over the years he added to his solo discography titles like Calling From A Country Phone and I Had A New York Girlfriend, and now the Brisbane-born Forst...

"Sprinter" The Florida-born Cat Ridgeway is speeding into national prominence. Or, to be more specific, she's sprinting there. Ridgeway's new album Sprinter is an adrenalized blast of hook-filled rock and roll, howling blues and scruffy pop that's one of the most refreshing listens of the year. A commanding presence with charisma to burn, Ridgeway, along with her band the Tourists, are full of a h...

"Hue Mirror" In Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag once wrote: “Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” Well...

"Dance With Me" The married Michigan duo of Annagail are hard to categorize because of their startling musical range. With The Smiths, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and The Foo Fighters, Annagail's running through their musical DNA, Jared and Jennifer aren't afraid of a folk song or a pop song or a blues song or a roots song. It's fair to say that they're not afraid of anything. More on that in a mi...

"Remembering Mark Stewart of The Pop Group" Throwing curveballs at the moon is how The Pop Group's Mark Stewart describes the creative process and it might also very well be the perfect description of the Pop Group's career. Unconventional, ferociously innovative, and delightfully idiosyncratic, The Pop Group have never cared about what's happening in the mainstream and instead adhered to the rhyt...

“New Girl Syndrome” The New Zealand-born Lisa Crawley has fearlessly created art and then just as fearlessly followed that art all over the world. From a small town in Japan to a cruise ship to Los Angeles, Crawley is not afraid of the hard miles and she’s bravely traversed the globe performing wherever she can. Armed with a luminescent voice and melodic muscle, Crawley’s work suggests a dreamy mi...

"Face Of 68" The Connecticut-born Peter Holsapple isn't hiding his age--his new album Face Of 68 proudly blares it in its title and though the 68 is representative of his current chronology, like our old friend Billy Bragg, he knows that number is a temporary thing and another waits in front of it. So, to honor this moment in his life, Holsapple's third solo album is a celebration of a year in a m...

"GPYR" I'm admittedly a bit fixated on a 16 year old Josh Joplin getting in the van and driving away from his family, his friends and high school in order to blaze his own musical trail out there in the American wild, but I think I'm mostly fixated on that for both its ambition and its bravery. For starters, it's cool that Josh had the belief the world would find him--and it did. But to know that...

"The Rain Never Came" As The Delevantes,the New Jersey-born Mike Delevante and his brother Bob put their stamp on the '90s by releasing two perfect albums of shimmering Americana: 1995's Long About That Time and 1997's Postcards From Along The Way. They were pretty much crushing it; they appeared on Conan, had a #1 album on the Gavin Americana charts and got rave reviews from all over the world. W...

"Developer" Formed in the mid-80s in Missoula, Montana by high school pals Tim Midyett, Joel R. Phelps and Andy Cohen and rounded out by Seattle-born drummer Michael Dahlquist, Silkworm remain one of the most singular indie rock bands of all time. They relocated from Montana to Seattle in 1990 and then the real fun began. Their 1994 album In The West was produced by Steve Albini, who actually went...